


For the Lulz

by GrumpyJenn



Category: Selfie (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-24 08:17:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2574542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpyJenn/pseuds/GrumpyJenn





	For the Lulz

Part of Henry wanted to wash his hands of her; she was trouble and a mess and a whole lot of work.

But when Eliza let down the brash and cocky defenses, showed that she was in fact vulnerable and not just the slightly slutty party girl she presented to the world, Henry melted.

And he tended to put his foot firmly in his mouth and hurt her besides. He hated when he did that, evoked the look on her face when she protested that she wasn’t a lost cause, when she admitted she got used to eating over a trash can because no-one wanted to sit with her, when he told her _she_ was the mistake he’d made on the weekend with the boss… she just killed him.

Eliza was manipulative, but Henry didn’t think she used her insecurities to manipulate; she was too, well, _honest_ for that. They were friends, sort of, and he’d started to understand when she was putting a good face on it – which was most of the time – and when she was seriously hurt, those very sensitive feelings underneath the sexy pout bruised by the crap life threw at people.

She hadn’t told him she was going to her high school reunion, and so Henry watched the evening unfold on Facebook, watched her look more and more tense, the people in the shot with her retreat from her more as the evening wore on.

“Gettin’ my party on, for the lulz,” the caption of the latest one said, and it was a picture of Eliza in her least revealing party gear, grinning at the camera.

The grin didn’t reach her eyes though, and when Henry saw the bitchy-looking woman in the background whispering to another woman and pointing at Eliza, he’d had enough.

He got dressed up, carefully in a nice suit, and headed for the high school, but when he got there, Eliza was nowhere to be seen. Dammit. He told the woman at the reception area that he was Eliza Dooley’s plus one (and wouldn’t she be amused by that after the weekend?) and started to get seriously annoyed with the woman simpered at him and remarked how Eliza had always been so scatterbrained she’d never even mentioned there _was_ a plus one… but she’d make him a name tag anyway, because it wasn’t _his_ fault Eliza was so flaky.

“Where is B—  Eliza, anyway?” the woman was asking, and when she said she’d seen her earlier but she’d be easy to spot because of the… _revealing_ … outfit she had on, Henry’d had enough. He gave the woman a withering stare until she looked away in confusion and turned on his heel, heading off into the crowded gymnasium to find Eliza.

Eliza wasn’t there. She would have been easy to spot, with the mile long legs and the long flame of hair (not that Henry ever thought about her in those terms, of course he didn’t; they were friends, more or less). She’d be easy to spot.

But she wasn’t there.

Now Henry was a little worried, and so he searched until he found the bitchy-looking woman from the background of Eliza’s last Facebook picture. “Excuse me,” he said politely. “Would you know where Eliza Dooley went? I’m meeting her here.”

The woman didn’t even look at him, just muttered a ‘who cares?’ and turned her back on him.

Henry gritted his teeth and left the gymnasium, finding a quiet corner where he could call Eliza. But she didn’t pick up, and while with most women that might be a coy sort of come-on, he knew that for her it wasn’t. Not with him.

So he went outside the building and tried again, and faintly, very faintly, heard her ringtone. She was out here somewhere, he knew it, so he went looking.

When he found her, she was sitting huddled against a wall, long legs drawn up and her chin resting on her knees. She looked absolutely miserable, and when she spotted him, she just closed her eyes and waited. So Henry sat down beside her, near but not touching, and did some waiting of his own until she was ready to talk.

“Why do they hate me?” Eliza asked, and her voice broke. But she soldiered on. “I mean, I’ve tried being like them, tried everything you said about being interested in other people.” Her voice was rising now, but she still didn’t open her eyes. “So why do they still hate me?”

“Because you’ve surpassed them,” Henry heard himself saying, and then she opened her eyes and looked at him, tears just this side of overflowing. She didn’t ask what he meant, just waited, and he explained. “Look, when you were all kids they hated you because you were different. But now…” He reached out and brushed off the tear that fell. “Now you’re beautiful, and intelligent, and successful, and you’re learning to be, well, _more_ than they are with their petty meanness. They don’t hate you. They’re jeal—mmph!”

Eliza kissed him, and for one moment he kissed her back.

But then they both pulled away, and went to put a good face on it together.


End file.
